Numbers 26:40, commentary and pictures

The verse records that Bela's sons were Ard and Naaman, and that from them came the families called the Ardites and the Naamites. It belongs to the second numbering of the host of Israel, taken near the end of the wilderness journey before entrance into Canaan. That numbering was made at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, forty years after the first census. It was taken in the plains of Moab thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai.

The census was taken by Moses at the Lord's command, and it brought no trouble, in contrast with David's census taken without the Lord's consent. Of all the men counted in the first numbering, not one except Caleb and Joshua was alive to witness the second numbering, because every other person had fallen in the wilderness. The failure happened because the people were wicked and sin was in their midst, breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against God, so that by solemn oath He excluded them from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness.

The second numbering proves beyond dispute that God fulfills His threatened judgments against rebellion and that not one rebel remained alive. It is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1 to note how the tribes changed, with some falling off or decreasing and others increasing greatly. It stands with various laws and ordinances giving valuable instruction that is of interest and profit. It warns those upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom and whose tokens of God's favor, presence, and willingness to save cannot be greater than Israel's at the first numbering, that carrying sin in the heart will still cause them to come short of the promise and bring inevitable ruin.